JOY
by Mill Girl
Summary: Just a gentle interlude, late one night. Nothing dramatic, just a lot of loving.


Joy – An interlude.

There are few things in life which give unadulterated joy, which is a sensation so pure, so uncomplicated, that it drips like ambrosia into the soul. Joy acts as instant emotional food, releasing instant endorphins, without a trace of compromise or contamination.

Watching Miranda remove the last of her clothing, stand right before her naked and then move forward to join her in their shared bed gave exactly this joy, this level of intense pleasure to Andy Sachs. That it happened every night at about the same hour heightened her base level of happiness to above sublime.

She rolled over and rested her head on one arm.

"So, are we finally ready, my Beloved?"

"Yes."

"At last! It's taken ages. I should really put you on the shopping channel to demonstrate high end makeup removal. "

"Don't start on that, or I'll use the wet flannel treatment on you, girlie. I let you get away with far too much slovenliness as it is."

"You know I only do it to tease you. And you like to be teased."

"Hmm. No-one else is allowed to tease me. So why do I let you?"

"Because you know it's good for you. It's like mental tickling, and it makes you laugh, and when you laugh, your lovely eyes are like stars in the night sky. "

Andrea nestled closer to the side of the bed.

"You know I adore looking at you without all your war-paint, and I especially adore looking at you stark naked. I'm glad I'm the only person in the world who's allowed to do it."

Miranda made a face, a face which she knew only too well was nearly fifty years old and had been through various wars. She'd given birth ten years before to almost full-term twin girls, each weighing in at a bouncing 6 lbs, and she'd also breast fed them for as long as she could. Her body was not that of a twenty five year old, not at all like the seamless perfection of the young models she spent her life professionally dressing and redressing, nor like the smooth muscles of her own beloved lover. Andy had a beautiful body and could also run round Central Park without breaking into a sweat or getting breathless. When they wrestled, as they sometimes did, she always won.

Andrea gazed up at Miranda, as she made her final move towards the bed and slipped off all her rings to avoid chafing or hurting Andy's silky skin.

"Stop, please. Just stand there and let me look again at you."

"What?"

"Stand still.

"Now turn around, slowly."

Miranda turned.

Despite a pretty ferocious Pilates and workout routine, she was aware of all her softening bumps and curves, her dips and creases. She barely tasted carbs or fats. She was more acquainted with undressed lettuce leaves than any other woman in New York. And her only real indulgence, double chocolate ice-cream, she used mainly as an aphrodisiac body butter, as she licked it off Andrea's body in one of their many and various sex games.

Miranda knew she could not turn back the march of time entirely. Her once bright red hair had turned white, her throat had softened, her back occasionally ached, and she could feel the spikes of menopausal hot fury sometimes wash over her with embarrassing and unannounced impertinence.

All of this was why Andrea appreciated her willingness to expose herself, as she was, undisguised and vulnerable, so very much. She absolutely worshipped the ground she walked on.

"Lift your hair away from your face."

Miranda lifted her arms and pushed back her locks. Her breasts rose with the movement, which was what Andrea had really wanted to enjoy.

"Stay like that for a moment, please." Andrea's gaze deepened and she fastened her eyes on Miranda's body, until she could see her begin just to sweat a little. This was a favourite game.

To Andrea, Miranda was her goddess, pure and simple, but along with worshipping, she also enjoyed cajoling, and also at times controlling her deity. It restored just a little of the balance of power between them. Now they were becoming practised lovers, with a wildfire lit between them which was so white-hot, Andrea could physically bring Miranda to a screaming fit of orgasmic passion within ten minutes any time of the day or night if she chose.

Miranda was fond of commanding, at the most inappropriate moments, "Tell me how much you love me!"

They had early on established it was to the outer regions of the solar system and back. "Not far enough," had retorted Miranda.

"Then you'll have to teach me more about astronomy," had countered Andy. "Teach me some distant stars and how far from earth they are, and I'll set off."

"You are not going anywhere. Kiss me. Now"

"I wish I had kissed you earlier, when you were always complaining and telling me off. What would you have done?"

"Kissed you back. Or bitten you. Not sure which."

"You have a violent streak. I always suspected it."

Miranda now stood still, her arms still lifted, as beautiful as a statue by Canova. Her eyes were dark violet blue tonight, and her bone structure was up-lit by the bedside lamp so it shone like white marble. She bit her lip in an unconscious hesitation, or a fleeting lack of confidence, but her teeth were like perfect pearls, and her naked breasts spoke their own words of love as they stiffened with arousal.

"You . . . are . . . so . . . lovely, " whispered Andrea. "What have I done to deserve you loving me?"

She had been lying under the sheet, in her pyjamas, because she knew how much Miranda adored to undress her. But she now rose to her knees and knelt on the edge of the bed so she could wrap her arms around her woman. The heat already between them turned up a few degrees. She could feel Miranda's spine shiver under her fingers, and how the fine hairs at the top of her neck rose by a millimetre or two in response to her caress. Miranda now took her head in her hands, and with a tiny groan bent her face to give feather kisses across Andy's forehead, across her cheeks and her chin, before connecting with her mouth.

She knew she owned Andrea body and soul, and in return was owned by her. But she needed continual reassurance, and mouth to mouth resuscitation put the energy back into her body.

Andrea's hands slid south and cupped Miranda's buttocks. Miranda pushed and toppled her back over so that she fell against the pillows. They landed together with a thump, and Miranda laughed, that sweet, low laugh she could produce when she was truly happy, and knew she was on her way to getting what she wanted, turning Andrea into a frenzy of sexual energy, which in turn would enflame her own core until it exploded into multiple magnificent orgasms.

They rolled together on the bed.

"Put off the lamp, love," she told Andrea, who could more easily reach the switch. "When I'm with you in the darkness, I feel we could be anywhere in the universe, just us, floating free, like spirits."

Andy obediently reached up and over and flicked the switch. "But I don't want to be just a spirit. If that was true then I'd so miss your beautiful physicality. You make love to all my senses, I adore to look at you, to feel you, to smell you, to hear you." She wrapped her arms round Miranda, and smoothed her hair.

"You missed out "taste". The taste of you is what turns me on more than anything else." Miranda was already tugging at Andrea's pyjama trousers. She loved slipping them down her legs and then burying her head in the gateway between her thighs. She managed to continue, "You're right. I don't want to be a spirit just yet, but when the old body wears out completely . . . . "

"Sshh. don't start on that, or I will tie you to the bedpost and force you to wait while I kiss every inch of your body before I let you come."

"There aren't any bedposts on this bed."

"Hmm, you're right."

"When we buy furniture for our beach cottage, we could think about getting one of those old fashioned beds with an iron frame, if you like. . . "

"Back to bondage then?"

"It did bring us together. It could be fun, maybe."

"I can have more than enough fun just with your wonderful body. But maybe, as you say, we could try a bit of gentle bondage. I like it when you scare me, and I also quite like scaring you."

"We've come a long way already, all things considering."

"We have indeed."

When they had first met, the most unlikely pairing in the whole of New York's fashion district, Miranda, the Editor in Chief of Runway, the world leader in fashion magazines, had torn Andrea, not just into strips, but into confetti. The new girl from Ohio was worse than ignorant, she was arrogantly oblivious of every word in Miranda's vocabulary. She knew nothing about fashion and cared less. Her clothes might easily have come from a Goodwill store in a depressed mining town in West Virginia.

Andrea, or Andy as she kept calling herself, (like some stupid male presenter on children's TV, Miranda first thought), as often as not wore no make-up at all. She hated high heels, and even often forgot to brush her hair. To begin with, she couldn't spell the names of the most famous designers in the world, and worst of all, while she was usually respectful, Miranda could never quite manage to terrify her enough to prevent her from stating her opinions and at times, actually openly disagreeing with her. What made this doubly annoying was that on those occasions when Andrea did speak up, she was nearly always proved right.

But within less than a week of hiring the girl as a second assistant, Miranda Priestly was so deeply in love, she didn't know whether she was coming or going. As she struggled against this impossible and ludicrous reality, her normal icy glare became glacial, her irritability rose to irrational fury, her heels became higher, and her demands soon escalated to impossible.

She fought this ridiculous crush with all her powers, but it wouldn't go away. It grew and grew like a little green plant pushing up through the stone paving of a New York sidewalk. It proved the catalyst for the end of her unfulfilling marriage to a lecherous bully of a man, and the reconnection with a heart she had long ago decided to pave over and turn into a warehouse for lost dreams. Miranda had melted, and Andrea had melted right along with her.

"When I look at you, my insides go like those little lava cakes with melting caramel inside,"

"Why is every image on your brain always connected with calories?"

"So, what do you think of when you think of me then?"

"To be honest, recently? Chocolate ice-cream and eating you alive from the inside out."

"There you go. You're worse than me."

Now, in these lovely hours around midnight, when it was just the two of them, and they could play and pleasure each other as much as they liked, Andrea remembered all those times at Runway when she and Miranda had simply stood or sat in awkward silences together, within all the bustle and oblivious noise of the people around them.

There had been so much to say, and yet, nothing which could be said. To Andy, her giant crush on Miranda was something she realised she had been building up to for the last twelve years, through several unrequited love affairs with older women who were either oblivious, or too closeted to respond, or just casually cruel, pulling her in, and then tossing her out.

Boys on the other hand had always found her very attractive, sexy and great fun. She had been able to hide her gay sexuality in plain sight with a bevy of boyfriends who naturally warmed to her and had high hopes, only to be disappointed by the far-away look in her eye at times when she should have been responding to them with complete adoration.

Miranda had noted immediately that Andrea was naturally very beautiful, with rippling chestnut hair, large dark eyes and a huge, sexy, curling mouth. She was taller than average and a good athlete, so her body shape had more curves than the fashionable waif life silhouettes of the Runway models. Her nickname with Nigel, the Art Director, remained "Six", an American size, which in the fantasy world of fashion equated to "Fourteen" outside.

Miranda, whose heart and brain had previously been too concreted over for her to fantasise having sex with any woman, could think about nothing else whenever she looked at Andrea moving past her with the ungainly grace of a young colt. Andrea, oblivious to this, but acutely embarrassed by her own inappropriate feelings, had channelled them into beating Miranda at her own game, and meeting every challenge thrown at her. This had exhausted but also at times amused them both.

After seven months of Andy's employment, they had achieved an unspoken intimacy which extended to virtually breathing in tandem, speaking in half understood code, and playing an endless, unfinished game of emotional tennis. The final tie-break had come on the night of the French Consulate party, and the rest, as they say, was history. (_Author's note:_ _As told in Cuffed and other stories in the Heatwave series_)

Andrea's mind often returned to those early months. She had adored Miranda as an employee from the start, and just as in any crush had studied her subject intently. She learned her external, dressed self as well as a course text-book. She knew Miranda's various choices of clothes, her shoe-size, her favourite jewellery, her hand-writing (European and spiky, not all loopy like the average American hand), and her unique glorious scent, made for her by a French perfumery, and shipped over almost in bulk from their base in Toulouse.

She knew how to neutralise her boss's annoying habit of talking in power whispers, by simply invading her space and leaning close enough to her body so she could catch every word. This meant that Miranda had either to speak up, or permit such intimacy. She had wavered between the two, but eventually favoured the latter when they were alone, and the former when others were present.

Andrea also learned how to fetch coffee before it was asked for, catch bags as soon as they were thrown, and set up phone calls before Miranda herself had even decided she needed to speak to some-one. She knew when Miranda called her at 4 am, it was because she couldn't sleep. She knew logically life wasn't normal, that they were indeed in a relationship, and that the relationship was far from platonic.

But, oh my, now she knew her so much better, and found there was still so much to learn. Learning Miranda by heart would take the rest of her life.

This midnight hour Miranda's own mind was fully in the present, and she had no interest in day-dreaming. Her current activity was so delicious it left no room for external thoughts. She had undone the button of Andrea's Betty Boop pyjama trousers and had pushed them down to her ankles with one hand, while already invading her secret places with the other. She now had her where she wanted, and proceeded to undo the pyjama jacket with her teeth, cleverly sliding out the buttons and pulling the jacket apart. She kissed each breast very sweetly, almost demurely, but Andrea bucked under her wicked right hand and knew what was coming. Her nipples tightened into hard buds, and she began to pant.

Using her own hands and mouth, she concentrating on making Miranda scream rather than laugh, as she nibbled her collar bone and then kissed her ear until she could hardly stand the tickling. She had her arms tightly wrapped around Miranda's upper back, stopping the descent of that wicked mouth, but eventually was forced to relent. Miranda's need was simply too strong. Andrea relinquished her hold and stopped her kissing. She just lay back.

Miranda's head fell into its preferred position between her legs, and she kicked Andy's pyjamas away until they hit the floor at the end of the bed. Her tongue, so quick to criticise and condemn when it chose, now conveyed nothing but honey. She licked her way into Andrea, and tasted the overflowing liquid bubbling unbidden from inside he. It was like ambrosia, and if she was Andrea's goddess, then she was taking her fill. The more excited Andrea became, the wetter was the whole experience, which Miranda adored.

She loved how she could excite and stimulate her lover beyond rational thought, and could see that Andrea's responses were completely hormonal and unforced. She knew tonight she could maybe give her not one, nor two but maybe three full orgasms, and her own body was on fire with desire and a feral passion which had nothing in common at all with middle-aged caution, middle-class morality, or menopausal disinterest.

Andy was now twisting and bucking against her tongue and teeth. She sucked her clitoris and could feel it vibrating. Her tongue went down behind it and she met Andy's vaginal spasms with her own rhythmic music, a gentle pulse which grew stronger as Andy's core sucked her in. Andy's arms were thrashing so Miranda grabbed her hands and held them tight, deepening and intensifying their coupling so it was centred and strong.

There was no need to use her hand. Andy was coming against her tongue. If there weren't sleeping children in the house the younger woman would have screamed, but as it was she could barely contain the pleasure. Electric shocks ran up and down Andy's core. It was if Miranda had lit a beacon, or a firework under her. "Light the touch paper and stand back".

Miranda knew she could make it happen again. She raised her head and shifted up her body, so that her hand could take over. Then she plunged the middle three fingers on her right hand deep inside Andy. No-one had noticed how she had trimmed her nails back in recent weeks, but Andy knew the reason only too well. Miranda had explored every hill and vale of her sexual landscape, and knew just how to give the stimulation and rhythmic massage which brought a repeat climax within a few minutes.

Miranda was riding a very fast horse and would have gone for the winning post of a third orgasm, but Andy decided to grab the reins and take control. She did this effectively by using her strength to flip Miranda over, so she was beneath her, and took her to her own climax far too fast and almost too roughly to be altogether comfortable. But it was how Miranda liked it. Andrea had understood this early on, and always gave her lover what she wanted.

Now she settled against Miranda's chest and smoothed her silver hair with one lifted arm. "It gets better for me, even better than one can imagine. Is it the same for you? Would you like more?"

Miranda snuggled, and caught Andy's arm to bring it back inside her. "Stay," was all she said. "Just stay." Andy could feel her body, warm and throbbing. Her hand rested gently against Miranda's pubic mound, but entered again the inviting corridor of love, and held her close. Their breasts lay against each other, one set pale as porcelain, the other golden with summer exposure and a brunette's easy tan. But in the dark, they were identical in their warmth, their beauty and the arousal they gave to each other. Their breathing settled into its familiar pattern.

"You give me nothing but joy," whispered Miranda. "So do you," breathed Andrea. "Goodnight, my darling." But to her slight surprise, there was no reply. Miranda had slipped into a deep sleep. Well, she was forty-nine . . . after all.


End file.
